TO IMPE'ND. v.n. [impendeo, Latin.] To hang over; to be at hand; to press nearly.

Destruction sure o'er all your heads impends;Ulysses comes, and death his steps attends.

Pope's Odyssey

Samuel Johnson: A Dictionary of the English Language, 1st ed., 1755

Fate is the antithesis of natural law. A natural law is something you fathom and make use of, but not fate.

The
use of the word "fate". Our attitude to the future and the past. To
what extent do we hold ourselves responsible for the future? How much do
we speculate about the future? How do we think about the past and the
future? If something unwelcome happens: -- do we ask "Whose fault is
it", do we say "It must be somebody's fault", -- or do we say "It was
God's will", "It was fate"?

In
the sense in which asking a question and insisting on an answer is
expressive of a different attitude, a different mode of life, from not
asking it, the same can be said of utterances like "It is God's
will" or "We are not masters of our fate". The work done by this
sentence, or at any rate something like it, could also be done by a
command! Including one which you give yourself. And conversely the
utterance of a command, such as "Don't be resentful", may be like the
affirmation of a truth.

12 comments:

I love the poem, love the ungainly bird of night fluttering down too near. Love the image, that is, though not the feeling it gives. Like the entry about FATE. It's always an interesting one for me, that argument between fate and free will and all its permutations. I think the bigger question is not free will but free-wheeling idiocy that rules. But then I should be brief these days . . .

Yes, that bird is scary indeed, and scared or no, I suppose we all should learn to be brief.

In this university town that plays host, however unwillingly by some at this late date, to persons from all corners and nooks and crannies of the globe, the default behaviour of young persons (as observed by those ever so reliable witnesses, creepy old invalids on night buses), when not actively engaged on career or fun track, is flipping open one of those handheld thingies, and losing the anyway apparently hollow self in a world of blankness, pointlessness, and the sort of pinhead text-message brevity characteristic of the communications of single-cell organisms.

But wait, how do single-cell organisms communicate, while holding mobile devices? -- argues for the need of another cell right there.

Of course, freewill doesn't even enter into this particular realm of phantasmagoria, because anybody who owns one of those devices is no longer an autonomous entity, but simply another working part in a much larger form of social organization designed for the profit of individuals whose portfolio includes, among other things, not letting us know where we might find them, in the odd event we might have a question or two to pose.

So I suppose this reverts to the archaic concept of the gods, remote cavalier weirdos at whose wont earthquakes and plagues and climate alterations could happen every time the mood ring message app came up on their smartphones.

Well, then. I absolutely know how Holderlin feels (although I wish I didn't), but I've never seen the sentiment and thoughts that goes with it so well and memorably expressed. I think I know how Wittgenstein feels also, i.e., extremely confused and confounded by blind, blocked alleys. It's a remarkable composition of remarkably composed photographs also. There's a funny remark in the movie 21 Jump Street occasioned by one of the male leads (played by Jonah Hill) telephoning a girl he's interested in. She's surprised that he's phoned, rather than texted her, and she tells him: "Oh! Hey, man! Uh...so weird that you're calling me. I pretty much text, except for when a random old relative calls." I hate texting and beg Jane not to text me. As you might imagine, my begging has been to no avail, as begging usually is. Curtis

"And conversely the utterance of a command, such as 'Don't be resentful', may be like the affirmation of a truth." It is the natural course that youth and the full throatedness of our song is brief. Also that we are surrounded by dunderheads. Twas ever thus. Resentment undoes us totally.

Black and white, twilight and ice - Hölderlin seems a good guide to these badlands. That bird isn't one you want to have trapped in your bedroom. Funny that texting feels so much like bad brevity in this context - like if the young knew there'd be a time when brevity will be imposed on them, come at them like a trapped bird filling the room, maybe they'd embrace loquaciousness a little, while they can. Language, it's wasted on the young.

Thoughts loom like those mesmerizing lenticular clouds, or the bridge tower in the Portland photo. I’m less certain about the distinction that Wittgenstein draws between fate and natural law. Rather than opposition, there's a relationship. Fate is another way, the classical way, to speak of probability—chance, fortune, hazard—Hölderlin’s “luck.” Fate is operational; it impinges on actions or states, whether it’s gods or physical forces at play. It’s in the way things interact. Natural laws then, would also be subject to fate; that is, to probability. David Bohm, physicist and philosopher, postulates that nothing exists in and of itself, but only in context, only in relationship to other things, to the universe. An object, person, or event is, to use his marvelous phrase, an “invariant relationship” whose outlines are inconstant, always in flux.

You are a slaveFrom the executive suite to the sweeper on the streetSlaves allYour wage might buy you some vacations on crowded airplanes in USA EU Maybe only some overpriced toxic food in the marketsIn Poland the markets may be rich or poorYou go to the appropriate one in the rainIn the nightAfter workWork is an honor/blessing/privilegeIt allows you to be a slave You do not want to join the uselessNon-slavesChattle

A photograph at night reveals wobbly legs over large rectangular bricksAnonymous legs hurrying to market or some other slave destinationThe lines of the brick pattern revealRegimentationEverywhere is boxy perpendicularityYou can buy boxes of cereal in the marketHurryIt’s closing time